Vendetta Stone (24 page)

About two hours after detectives and crime scene investigators arrived, Officer Barry Mendez began searching for Jackson. Pockets of people stood behind the yellow tape barricades and confusion reigned everywhere. It took Mendez a minute to spot Stone, who walked down the street with me for an interview away from the crowd. I conversed with my head down, going over my notes and didn’t realize the cop approached.

“S
o you sensed something was wrong when you saw the pile of papers and decided to check the house,” I said. “You broke in, found the bodies downstairs in the basement. You saw Mister Fletcher lying on the floor. Now how about Mrs. Fletcher? And could you tell how either died?”

“
It was just an appalling, gruesome scene,” Jackson said. “I didn’t see Sarah at first, then—”

“Excuse me, Mister Stone, Chief King
wants to see you,” Mendez said.

“Let me finish
—”

“Now, sir.”

Jackson left and I wondered why the cop ordered him around like that.

Chief King was studying Commander Reynolds’ preliminary report when Mendez ushered Jackson to the Fletchers’ backyard gazebo, which served as the temporary command post. The NCSI team continued to pore over the crime scene, accumulating evidence and taking photos. Jackson stood and waited. Mendez stood watch to ensure no

interruptions. The forensics team leader
came outside the house, and made eye contact with the Chief.

“Wait here, Mister Stone.”

Jackson fidgeted, sat and took off his jacket. He saw the EMS crew arrive to take the bodies to the morgue. Finally, the chief returned, and sat beside him. He looked Jackson square in the eye and rubbed his chin.

“It’s time for the truth to come out,” King said. “Why’d you do it?”

Jackson misinterpreted King’s question.

“Do what?”
Jackson said, jumping to his feet. “You think I somehow figure in their deaths? You son of a—”

“No, Jack.”
The always-cool police chief raised an open hand as if he were a crossing guard holding up a stop sign. “I don’t think you murdered your neighbor and his wife,” King said in a warm, soothing tone that made Jackson sit back down. “I do think you’ve acted rash and foolish about all this vendetta business, but you’re not a murderer—yet. No, what I wanted to know is why you broke into the house and didn’t wait for our men to arrive. It’s dangerous, and you might have tampered with a key piece of evidence or disturbed the crime scene. It jeopardized the entire investigation.”

Jackson
thought about it, agreed, and nodded. “You’re right, sir. I didn’t think, I just acted on instinct, and I apologize. I didn’t touch anything; you’ve got the report.”

“Apology accepted,” King said, moving on. “And if you think of anything to add to that report, let Commander Reynolds know.”

King lapsed into a long, silent stretch, and Jackson squirmed until the chief came to a decision.

“The most curious part of the captain’s report is when you stated having noticed what appeared to be some type of cloth in Herb’s mouth. Did it look like this?”

Jackson gasped, looking from the chief to his hand and back to the chief, too shocked to speak for several minutes. He recognized a pair of lacy, red Simone Perele underwear he gave Angela for her birthday last March.

After
Jackson identified the underwear—saying it sure looked like Angela’s—King decided to bring Jackson up to speed on the investigations. For what King planned, he desperately needed his cooperation.

“Somebody’
s gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like Herb Fletcher caused your wife’s death. We found these in the back of a drawer upstairs, along with some other personal items from your wife. We found another pair in Sarah Fletcher’s purse. The third pair—what you described to detectives as a piece of cloth—somebody crammed those in Herb’s mouth. Judging from the signs of struggle, it wouldn’t be too big of a leap to conclude that Sarah found out about the affair between Angela and Herb.”

“N
o affair occurred,” Jackson all but shouted.

The chief remained calm. “From the facial bruising, it wouldn’t be too hard to suppose that Herb slapped Sarah when confronted with the affair. From the DNA under Sarah’s fingernails and prints found on the knife in Herb’s back, one would construe that Sarah fought back and stabbed Herb, who fell down the stairs. No confession or suicide note, but it seems Sarah couldn’t live with the shame of what Herb did to Angela or her attack on Herb, so Sarah took her own life. The investigations are over, and the cases are closed to everybody’s satisfaction. Fears in East Nashville are calmed, and people get on with their lives—including you, Mister Stone.”

Jackson looked ready to explode when the chief raised a hand again to stop him.

“The problem is it’s all too tidy an explanation. Nothing’s ever as it seems. Somebody wants us to think we’ve got all the answers, so we’re going to see how that plays out. Then if I’ve guessed right, that somebody’s going to come looking for you, Stony, as they’re calling you on the radio. So I’m here to ask for your help. Will Stony stick his neck out to catch a killer?”

Jackson almost laughed out loud, but just stared sullenly at the chief. A Stony silence.

What do you think I’ve been trying to do?

Stony had his own agenda. Stony needed to work alone. Stony needed to get there first.

I got back to the paper about twelve thirty after Chief King’s media briefing and compared notes with young reporters Shelley Finklestein and Tony Smith. I added a few King quotes to the online story which by then already drew more than three hundred comments, many by the same posters and going off on several irrelevant tangents.

I
pounded out my twenty-inch mainbar on the day’s events and made a couple of minor changes my editors requested. I also looked over the copy from Shelley and Tony, offering a few suggestions which they seemed to appreciate. Her piece focused on the Fletchers, who they were, and why this tragedy occurred. His article took a look at how three brutal deaths in a three-week span rocked a close-knit community, how it might affect local businesses, and he quoted Commander Mark Reynolds on how citizens shouldn’t fear for their safety.

After all that, I
returned to the Sunday piece I’d begun to write hours earlier. It was less than scintillating prose, but I planned to polish it on Thursday morning. I sent Carrie a copy for her input and feedback, then reviewed my mainbar, already sent to the copydesk for the final edit. I still wanted to check Casey’s photographs, but Carrie seemed pleased with the choices. I planned to look at the online slideshow before I left for the night.

For me, t
he most intriguing part of the morning concerned one quote from Chief King during his briefing. Asked about possible connections between Angela’s murder

and the deaths of the Fletchers, the chief refused to be pinned down.

“Of course, the cases are being examined for similarities . . . No, I won’t elaborate or speculate,” he said. “Another question?”

The chief would not go into
how the Fletchers died; the press would have gone nuts if he’d told us it looked like a murder-suicide. The media would have demanded to know why. But there were ways of getting that information out. For me, the word came from Commander Reynolds. I caught him just before he headed back to the East Precinct, and we talked for fifteen enlightening minutes. As it turned out, Reynolds did not tell me everything, just what the chief wanted leaked. He refused to be quoted.

After talking it over with my editors
—Publisher Andrew Polk made the final call—we decided to go with the new information linking the three deaths. My story cited “sources close to the investigation” as confirming “certain similarities in the slayings.” The newspaper policy is to avoid unsourced stories but exceptions can be made for incidents like this one.

My mind kept going back to Ki
ng’s comments. I thought it a rather poor pun when King said, “We will look under every rock and stone during this investigation.”

O
ne of King’s favorite catch-phrases, it got me to wondering about a hidden meaning. The police said they’d officially ruled out Jackson as a suspect in his wife’s death, but what if? The case clearly revolved around Stone. Three slayings in two houses side by side? I don’t believe in coincidences, but couldn’t fathom the connection.

On a whim, I decided to call Doctor Erica Karnoff to
tap her thoughts. I wanted to talk to her anyway for my Sunday piece and hoped it wasn’t too late.

By five o’clock the
East Nashville neighborhood had returned to a semblance of normalcy—if the yellow police tape marking off the Fletchers’ entrances could be considered normal. Jackson sat in his den wishing for a six-pack, looked at the clock, and turned on Channel 11 to watch Clarkston’s remote broadcast from next door.

“P
olice have yet to classify it as either a double homicide or murder/suicide or reveal whether it’s connected to the recent death of next-door neighbor Angela Stone, who was murdered at her home almost three weeks ago. Angela’s husband, Jackson, made the grisly discovery this morning.”

Video showed two
stretchers being wheeled out and loaded into ambulances, police swarming the scene, and interviews with Chief King, Jackson, and several neighbors. The chief had interrogated Jackson privately, telling him to keep all the details to himself. Jackson had tried to honor that request, evading most media questions.

“I’m surprised that I didn’t notice anything wrong sooner,”
Jackson heard himself say on the television. “The last time I saw Herb was at Angela’s funeral. Sarah stayed home, and the last thing he said was that he was going to go home and try to talk Sarah into coming by to visit the family. But they never showed.”

Clarkston kept pressing
Jackson’s buttons to get the emotional response he wanted for the camera. That’s how TV guys operate.

“Police indicated the Fletchers die
d several days ago,” Clarkston said. “Is there reason to believe their deaths are in any way connected with your wife’s?”

Of course they are, you idiot
, Jackson thought, seething inside.

“Of cours
e not,” he said, keeping calm. “Other than the fact that they lived next door, I’d call it just a tragic coincidence. Sarah and Herb were having problems.”

Conducting interviews is like pitching, a mix of insightful off-speeds with probing curveballs or for
ceful fastballs. Sometimes it’s a perfect strike; other times you get shelled.

“There are unconfirmed reports of physical evidence linking the three deaths, that Sarah Fletcher took her own life after discovering an affair between Herb and Angela,”
Clarskton said. “Can you shed new light on this tragedy?”

Jackson had
anticipated the ambush statement, just not that quickly, and he felt a need to defend Angela’s honor.

“That’s a lie.
It makes me sick to hear stuff like that. Herb and Sarah were friends, and that’s all. You need to get your facts straight before you go repeating garbage like that. You’ll hear from my lawyer.”

He’d
stalked off and started yelling at the police spokesman, but the cameras didn’t show that. They stayed on Clarkston, who to his credit aired the confrontation with Jackson. Clarkston finished his report unflustered, though he felt sick inside. Had he blown his shot at working with the
Ed and Tara
show?

Jackson looked at his watch. Time to leave for the Wednesday evening services at church. He’d missed the weekly church dinner, but he needed to be in God’s house after such a horrifying day. As Jackson opened the car door, his cell phone rang. Big Red.

“I’m leaving now.”

Jackson made his way across town. He didn’t notice the big red pickup keeping a loose tail on him.

Delmore Wolfe all but howled as he watched the taped confrontation.

“Whooooo-haaaaaa! Way to go. Herbie, the lady-killer. And Sinister Sarah.”

Wolfe knew it would be a matter of time before the press got wind of the underwear, but it happened faster than he expected. In his mind, spinning a new fantasy, it meant the cops would stop looking for Angela’s killer. The cops’ evidence confirmed the “affair” and that Herb in fact murdered Angela when she tried to end the tryst.

Wolfe
flashed an evil grin as he watched Stone erupt at the reporter and stalk off. It was a modern American tragedy. The only thing missing? The final act—the demise of Jackson Stone.

He felt like celebrating his best day since arriving in Nashville a month before. Seeing Clarkston ask Jackson about the “love triangle” struck Wolfe as award-winning journalism. Feeling cocky and feeling the glow of freedom, he felt sure “the pigs will squeal over solving this one”—that Angela died at the hands of the next-door neighbor with whom she had a torrid fling, that Sarah Fletcher killed Herb after confronting him with what she discovered, that Sarah then committed suicide. Case closed.

A
night to remember, he decided as he pulled into the Got Spirits! liquor store near the Vanderbilt campus. He stood in line with four fifths in his two hands. Behind him, a raven-haired woman holding a bottle of Chablis answered her cell phone.

“H
ello, Mister Hilliard. Yes I’m headed home, but I have a few minutes. It’s funny you should ask. I met with Mister Stone yesterday afternoon.”

Wolfe
froze as he handed the clerk the cash, and his ears perked up.

“Yes I think it helped
him a great deal,” she said. “It took a while, but he opened up at the end. This isn’t for print, but I’d call it an excellent session. I fully comprehend why he’s doing this. I’m afraid I can’t discuss details, not even in general terms. You know
the doctor-patient relationship is confidential. . . . Yes we’re meeting again tomorrow.”

Wolfe
got in his car, then watched Erica fall into her Fiat and pull into traffic. Wanting to get in Stone’s head and the doc’s pants, he set out after her.

Some twenty minutes and eight turns later, Delmore Wolfe found himself semi-lost. He followed the speedy Fiat south/southwest out of the city to Old Hickory Boulevard and turned right on the state route which doubled as the dividing line between Davidson County and Williamson County’s Brentwood. A quarter-mile more and the Fiat turned left into a gated community of large, lush stone homes and manicured, flower-filled yards.

Wolfe
slowed and watched a slinky arm reach out of the car and punch a passcode into the scanner, then he stepped on the gas and sped on. As he wondered about the psychiatrist’s identity, it dawned on him just
where
he was. Wolfe approached from a different direction the last time he was here, but recalled the part of the park where he buried Angela’s body.

Snatching Angela had proved no problem, although she was “a gamer” and put up a fight. But he reeled her in as easy as catching Ole Mister Catfish in the Arkansas River a dozen years earlier. Her pet dog actually became the first Nashville victim. It had growled at his stealth approach. He had noticed it earlier when leaving Sarah’s house and came back prepared.

“C’mon, boy,
” he’d said, “have a bite of this tasty burger.” When it got within striking distance, he struck. The tire iron made a nice crunching sound. “Reminded me of Granddaddy’s coon hound, ’cept this one didn’t make a sound.” Then he headed for the house. “Just warming up.”

Angela had gotten Jackson’s call from the Charlotte airport about five, saying he would be late, that mechanical problems had cancelled his flight, but the airline had re-routed a plane from Atlanta to fetch stranded passengers. She had picked at dinner and watched a little TV, but remained too disturbed from seeing Sarah with that guy in her kitchen. She couldn’t get the image out of her head, that lustful look of evil on the man’s face.

Angela
must have thought her friend insane to betray her husband in their own kitchen, Jackson would later say, knowing his wife’s moral compass. How in the world could sweet Sarah, her closest friend for a decade, wind up
on the floor
with that man? Caller ID, checked later, showed Sarah calling several times that afternoon, but Angela wouldn’t have accepted any calls with explanations for that behavior. Maybe Angela had perceived that man to be insane, too. He looked insane in those few seconds and what if he . . . no! The thought had horrified Angela.

She switched off the television, flipped off the lights
, and went upstairs. The steaming sprays of the shower felt wonderful beating down on her back and shoulders, but couldn’t wash away the day’s awful events. When her fingers wrinkled and her skin turned bright pink from the pulsating shower, Angela turned off the water, dried, put on her pajamas and robe, and settled on the king-size bed. She might have tried to read to keep her mind off things. Police would later find an open paperback on the night table. The title:
The Neighbor’s Dirty Little Secrets
.

Getting inside
had proved no problem for Delmore Wolfe. The itinerant handyman slipped on Latex gloves and picked the back lock. Downstairs lights off, check.

The scene Angela had witnessed earlier that afternoon in Sarah’s kitchen rattled her to the core. What purpose, what destiny in God’s great name, could viewing that obscenity serve? If everything did indeed happen for a reason, as she believed, why did she witness that despicable act? Perhaps she was there at that moment in time to scare off that man, to keep him from harming Sarah. But Sarah’s betrayal of Herb would have been an uncrossable line for Angela.

Angela would have been dead-certain that no matter how close they’d been in the past, she didn’t want to talk to Sarah ever again.

She wouldn’t.